Tag: Bashar al-Assad

Western politicians, “experts” and journalists are going to have to reboot their stories over the next few days now that Bashar al-Assad's army has retaken control of eastern Aleppo. We’re going to find out if the 250,000 civilians “trapped” in the city were indeed that numerous. We’re going to...

The Iraqi army, backed by US-led airstrikes, is trying to capture east Mosul at the same time as the Syrian army and its Shia paramilitary allies are fighting their way into east Aleppo. An estimated 300 civilians have been killed in Aleppo by government artillery and bombing in the...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump said Friday that he was likely to abandon the American effort to support “moderate” opposition groups in Syria who are battling the government of President Bashar al-Assad, saying “we have no idea who these people are.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal...

President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government, U.S. officials said.
The decision to deploy more drones and...

The American journalist, Edward Bernays, is often described as the man who invented modern propaganda.
The nephew of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psycho-analysis, it was Bernays who coined the term "public relations" as a euphemism for spin and its deceptions.
In 1929, he persuaded feminists to promote cigarettes for women...

When Mosul falls, Isis will flee to the safety of Syria. But what then?
The entire Isis caliphate army could be directed against the Assad government and its allies – a scenario which might cause some satisfaction in Washington.
Syria’s army and Hezbollah and Iranian allies are preparing for a massive...

Question: Foreign Minister Lavrov, welcome to the programme.
Sergey Lavrov: Thank you.
Question: We are here at an extraordinarily difficult and painful time: what’s happening in Syria has got the world very, very upset.
In the United Kingdom people are saying that this is the worst bombardment of civilians since the Nazis...

Question 1: Thank you very much, Mr. President. It's a big happiness for me, and I'm very proud. Okay, I will start from my questions. The situation in Syria become more dangerous and more unpredictable. Why? Because this conflict draws inside more participants and more players. For example, who...

The war won’t end until Assad’s most powerful backer has a seat at the table — and that isn’t Putin.
Whenever there has been a glimmer of light in the Syrian war, it has always been quickly extinguished. Take the cease-fire agreement reached in September by Washington and Moscow. After...

The real Syrian Narrative — cutting through the American mainstream misinformation and lies.
Dr. Henry Lowendorf is on the Executive Board of the US Peace Council – an pro-worker, anti-imperialist, peace organization founded in 1979 and committed to social justice and the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. The Council...

The United States and Russia are now at daggers drawn over Syria. Following the collapse of the ceasefire negotiated last month by Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the United States has abandoned talks with the Russians on Syria. Meanwhile, in a supposedly unrelated part...

The proposed Obama-Putin cooperation was killed by its enemies in Washington, with dire implications.
Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War.
The focus is on the Obama administration’s termination of months-long negotiations with Moscow for a joint US-Russian campaign...

As US struggles to respond to Syrian army advances, reports circulate of Russia deploying advanced S-300 VM Antey-2500 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria.
Shortly before the US announcement of its decision to suspend talks with Russia on the ‘cessation of hostilities’ agreement reached by US Secretary State Kerry and Russian Foreign...

Moscow has accused Washington of sabotaging the Syria ceasefire deal, saying that the US will be responsible for any new terror attacks in Syria, as by taking no action against Al-Nusra terrorists it shows it is ready “to make a deal with the devil.”
Washington “has never exerted any real...

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Secretary of State John Kerry was clearly exasperated, not least at his own government.
Over and over again, he complained to a small group of Syrian civilians that his diplomacy had not been backed by a serious threat of military force, according to an audio recording of...

The West blames Russia for the bloody mess in Syria, but U.S. Special Forces saw close up how the chaotic U.S. policy of aiding Syrian jihadists enabled Al Qaeda and ISIS to rip Syria apart, explains ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.
“No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort”, a...

If the West can’t deliver for Syria's mainstream rebels, maybe al Qaeda will.
It didn’t take long for the breakdown in cease-fire talks between the United States and Russia to affect the situation on the ground in Syria. Early Friday, Damascus heavily bombarded rebel-held neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo in a...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The Associated Press sat down with Syrian President Bashar Assad at a palace in downtown Damascus. Here's a full transcript of the interview:
Q: I will start by talking about the cease-fire in Syria. Russia, the U.S., and several countries say a cease-fire could be revived...

The top U.S. general told Congress on Thursday it would be unwise to share intelligence with Russia and stressed that would not be one of the military's missions if Washington and Moscow were to ever work together against Islamist militants in Syria.
The United States and Russia clinched a ceasefire...

WASHINGTON – The U.S. military watched an armed group in eastern Syria for at least two days before launching an airstrike on Saturday that was halted after Russia reported the attack hit Syrian regime forces, a U.S. Central Command spokesman said Tuesday.
The Pentagon has launched a formal investigation into...

After several years of arming and supporting Syrian rebel groups that often collaborated with Al Qaeda’s Nusra terror affiliate, the United States launched an illegal invasion of Syria two years ago with airstrikes supposedly aimed at Al Qaeda’s Islamic State spin-off, but on Saturday that air war killed scores of...

Deadly airstrikes on key unit battling Islamic State militants described as perhaps "single biggest blunder of the entire U.S. war in Syria".
An emergency U.N. Security Council meeting was called and an already tenuous cease-fire agreement is under further strain after U.S.-led coalition bombers on Saturday killed nearly one hundred...

US military says strikes were halted after Russia said they hit Syrian army; UN Security Council meeting called.
Air strikes blamed by Moscow and Damascus on the US-led coalition hit a Syrian army position in the east of the country on Saturday, killing more than 60 soldiers, the Russian army...

In a fundamental sense the entirety of the five-year-long war over Syria, as well as the entire Arab Spring from Libya to Egypt to Iraq has been about control of hydrocarbon resources—oil and natural gas– and of potential hydrocarbon pipelines to the promising markets of the European Union. Dick...

“I am the police chief who was asked to guard ISIS terrorists”.
A former senior counter-terrorism official in Turkey has blown the whistle on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s deliberate sponsorship of the Islamic State (ISIS) as a geopolitical tool to expand Turkey's regional influence and sideline his political opponents at...

Who says the United States got nothing for the star-crossed, $500 million train-and-equip program for Syrian rebels that fell apart last year? It apparently bought enough goodwill with one rebel group that they escorted U.S. special forces troops back into the northern Syrian town of Rai on Friday, just...

Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving...

The UN has accused armed groups in Syria of blocking the delivery of aid to the besieged city of Aleppo for “political gain” - including rebel factions inside Aleppo itself who say they will reject aid that comes through regime territory.
Two days after the Syria ceasefire agreement went into...

President Barack Obama is engaged in Felonious conduct, mis-using the US Military to provide training, equipment and logistical support to ISIS, Al-Qaida and other Terrorists in Syria, in violation of Title 18, United States Code 2339A and 2339B. These are “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” under American law and are...

WASHINGTON — The agreement that Secretary of State John Kerry announced with Russia to reduce the killing in Syria has widened an increasingly public divide between Mr. Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, who has deep reservations about the plan for American and Russian forces to jointly target...